2012-03-31

Over at Third Edge of the Sword World Headquarters in Sydney, Australia, the lights are all on, the garage door is being opened and closed every couple of minutes, the electonics are on and going, the portable electronics are charging, the oven is on, the microwave is heating a cup of cold water over and over again, and the dishwasher is running: a tablespoon was dirty.

Which takes us to the events of last night. A few beers into a pretty decent yet uneventful night, I end up standing near a young woman who's inexplicably talking to her table-mates about the case from a unique perspective: she's a close friend of Hugh Devon Saunders. And she's in the middle of giving his side of the story.

So here's what I was able to determine:

Saunders has privately admitted to family members that he was indeed Shernell's killer

Saunders knew she was on shift and when it ended, and confronted her in the Misericordia Hospital parking lot

[He probably either killed or incapacitated her there or near there (are there security cameras at the Miz parking lot?) and drove the car to its final location. Directly or indirectly isn't clear, nor how Pierre herself was murdered. All we know is that he got to her right as she was getting off work. -ed]

The reason for the confrontation and the eventual murder? Money. Apparently, when they were together Saunders loaned Pierre very significant sums of money: tens of thousands of dollars worth. When the two of them broke up, she didn't return the money. Quite to the contrary, she kept it. But she did more than that: she taunted him. She constantly told him that he was never getting it back, she was keeping it, that she was going to spend it for fun and on her new man, and that there was nothing he could do.

It turns out there was something he could do.

Soon after Pierre's murder, the police strongly suspected Saunders as the culprit. As a precaution, his passport was seized and he was placed on airline watch lists to ensure he couldn't leave the country (they knew that if he managed to make it back to his native Jamaica, he'd vanish off the face of the earth and they'd never see him again). Numerous family members were questioned, with particular interest to if Saunders had a history of aggressive behaviour (he had) and if he was known to get violent with women in particular (he hadn't).

I would like to say that I'm done with this file, but the particulars of this case have a weird habit of falling into my lap. Why this case? It beats me (and my editor), but there it is.

I never caught the girls name, nor do I suppose I was in much of a position to ask. The great thing about online anonymity is that she certainly wasn't saying something in my presence in the hope it would be overheard and published: like the original case I therefore have no way to followup on this information, or even to confirm the identity of the teller. Obviously a close friend of the murderer is an unreliable source of information (for an unrelated case I recently said exactly the same thing about close relatives), but the money thing is new and does provide a little extra motivation if true.

This also, alas, does not make Shernell Pierre out to be a little angel. Could this by why those purporting to be her family took to this blog to decry claims she was a homewrecker? The original post wasn't even hard on her, it sounded like she was dating a man and left him when he turned out to be married. The homewrecker stuff was added in by her family later. The money bit may in fact supplant the homewrecker stuff: if Saunders was infuriated by this bitch (yes, the girl at the bar at one point referred to Pierre as such) taking his money and then rubbing it in his face, it's not necessary for there to even be another man. If there is another man, she may have used this money from Saunders in part to marry him. As Chris Rock said about O.J. Simpson, I'm not saying he should have killed her. But I understand.

@FACLC but your previous tweets state that #ECCA doesn't inhibit #yeg then you blame zoning which is it?

The correct answer, of course, is that the reason there are no tall buildings in Edmonton is zoning. The downtown airport has nothing to do with it. As I've written before, everybody blaming the City Centre Airport for the lack of tall buildings is either lying to you (the closure fetishists) or regurgitating a lie told to them by the closure fetishists.

So let's look at a couple of illustrative examples:This first image is a currently empty property at the corner of 79th Avenue and 101st Street, just south of Whyte Avenue. One may note that this is 5.614km away from the closest tip of the airport's runway -- twice as far as the skyscrapers already on Jasper Avenue. There is now one of the signs promoting the city's zoning classification for this property, and the maximum height allowed on the site is....(wait for it)...24 metres. Yes, that's right, far more distant from the runway than any skyscraper, the City of Edmonton has decreed a building may not exceed six stories. Chad previously mentioned 490 feet as the "maximum allowable height" because of the airport. Yet City Hall has capped this building at 79 feet -- a mere 16% of the maximum height allowable.

What was my contention again? Oh yes, that the reason Edmonton is lacking tall buildings is entirely city zoning unrelated to the existence of the City Centre Airport. Hmmm, seems to be validated here.

The reality is that between the wishes of developers and the wishes of the brain dead dolts who are responsible for the City of Edmonton planning department, Edmonton is left lacking in the low building department. Then, money-grubbing pukes like Mandel and his developer friends use their own deliberate actions as proof that the airport is keeping the city down. It's a nice little scam here Chad, and you fell for it.

Just one more example, just for fun: this one highlights the developers and planners combining to have non-tall buildings in this city. Again, if you don't want tall buildings, fine, or if there's a reason to keep them low, fine: just don't go later and complain about no tall buildings and blame any reason that meets your goal of turning the City Centre airport into the Mandel/Iveson "green" urban slums of 2025.

This picture here shows the new (<10 years old) condos built on the old railway lands between 109th and 111th Streets. At the bottom of the picture you can see a medium-sized skyscraper: the "Jasper Oneleven" condos (home of Fiesty Bar Girls Inc.) that houses the Black Sheep Pub (former Stonehouse). It's 25 stories or so as memory serves. Another 12-15 story condo tower is visible at the top of the picture just south of Grant MacEwan. Clearly in this span between Jasper Ave and 104th Ave (again, barely a mile and a half from the airport) you can handle buildings of this height. The Jasper on 11th has been around for decades, but the two condos directly above it (including the one with the cool second-story pedway) are again less than 10 years old. Both of them are only four stories tall (as in, even shorter than the 79 feet allowed south of Whyte Avenue). Why? Well, the developer wanted a building like that, and the City ensured it happened.

None of these have anything to do with the airport. Blaming the airports for tall buildings is incorrect, and should cease immediately.

I always felt like a Black man trapped in a White man's body. Even as a child while the other kids drank lemonade I always preferred kool-aid. When they ate oranges, I reached for watermelon. When they sat reading their books, I felt the need to jump and holler.

I started my transition at the age of 19. First I just bought some black facepaint and put it on myself while looking in the mirror. I had never felt more true to myself. Then it progressed to wearing an Afro wig as well.

Pretty soon I had the full enseble, blackface, Afro wig, baggy pants and a doo-rag, the works.

Unfortunatly there is still a lot of bigotry, hatred, prejudice and transracialphobia in society. Often times narrow minded people will say that I'm "not a real Black man." I can't pretend that doesn't hurt.

I have even suffered physical attacks when I put on my black face paint and Afro wig, walked into the local African-American barber shop and announced "what's poppin' my niggas!"

It hasnt been easy being a WtB transracial but I feel that in time, society will get over their deep seated prejudices and give transracials the respect we deserve.

Well, okay, the second half of that hasn't been guaranteed yet, but I'm optimistic. I hope to post a little more frequently over the next four weeks, highlighting how dangerous Red Redford and her "progressive" (read: anti-Albertan) agenda is for this province.

Alberta is in a unique position to make a positive change in the world. We have a conservative bent in a world where destructive liberal forces are even turning the United States of America into a third world country, we have oil in a future where oil will make and break kings, and we have jobs and prospects in a western world where unemployment is the order of the day.

But to do that, we first have to defeat Redford, Sherman, Mason, Taylor, and the rest of the left-wing parties, the champions of societal pussification, who have a well publicized goal of turning Alberta into another California or Queerbec or Ontario (or, if they're on the baby-step side of things, Vermont). We have to stand firm against their sick agenda, and make sure that Alberta comes out of this election with its nose held high, and its guns turned directly on enemies both foreign and domestic.

Okay, reported is perhaps a strong word. I was placed in a situation where I was told this, and then a couple of days later blogged about it. That's roughly when all hell broke loose.

Both CTV News and the Edmonton SUN entered into the comments section of that post to ask me to speak to them with more information. I was accused of making things up and slandering Pierre (indicating that even if 100% of what I heard wasn't accurate, what I was told wasn't too far from the mark). The trouble is, I didn't know anything more than what I had put on that post. I even explained this in the followup post where I explained what I knew, and suggested a couple of areas of attack where somebody (say, a media person) could go for further information. Last Link on the Left reported the police were possibly frustrated with my "internet speculation", which was kinda cool, but besides that I was pretty much finished with Shernell Pierre.

Until today, when I was again asked to comment to the media. It was then that I learned that Devon Hugh Saunders, Shernell Pierre's ex-boyfriend, has been charged with her murder. Today, the internet is lit up with Devon Hugh Saunders. Yesterday, a Google search for him revealed exactly one hit: you guessed it, Third Edge of the Sword. For on that second post came the following comment:

THE NAME OF THAT JAMAICAN MAN IS DEVON HUGH SAUNDERS. HE IS THE MURDERER OF SHERNELL. HE IS THE EX-BOYFRIEND A VERY COLD AND CALLOUS PERSON. HE CALCULATES HIS EVERY ACTION TO A "T" AND DOES NOT CARE WHO GETS HURT. EVERYTHING HAS TO BE TO HIS SATISFACTION. WHEN YOU SEE THIS MAN STAY FAR AWAY FROM HIM. HE DRIVES A NAVY BLUE AVALANCHE WITH "HUGH'S HOME RENOVATIONS ON THE BACK WINDOW.

Now this same Devon Hugh Saunders is in custody. No word from official sources if he is indeed Jamaican, but I think at this point I can be pretty confident that I told you all how you could go about finding Shernell Pierce's killer.

2012-03-04

Only in Edmonton. After a single incident residents want Hope Road's speed limit brought down from 50km/hr to 30.

What? 50 to 30!? Are they nuts?

Here's a picture of Hope Road (click to view larger size):

How on earth can this roadway, which has a natural speed limit probably close to 70, possibly make any sense as a 30km/hr road? That's school zone speeds for an extended stretch of an arterial. Attention parents of Edmonton: don't let your kid play on arterials. Problem solved. You're welcome.

Now bring that speed up to 70 and let's strike another firm blow against the Pussification of Society.